Did you like Ridley Scott's 2001 film, Hannibal? It was darkly comic, completely crazy, over the top and absolutely gore-geous. It wasn't for everyone, but Anthony Hopkins really brought that character to all dimensions of life. Most flick fans of the Hannibal Lecter character prefer the Oscar-winning Jonathan Demme-directed The Silence of the Lambs. I love both of those movies, but I have a soft spot in my liver for Hannibal. (The only thing that would have improved it would have been to go for the gusto and use the source-novel's controversial climax. Alas, they went for the Hollywood ending.)
If you liked Hannibal, you cannot go wrong with the latest chapter in the canny cannibal's oeuvres. Hannibal Rising is an origin story (every crazy, flesh-eating killer needs one — Leatherface got his last year, but with much-less satisfying results), influenced by a few pages from writer Thomas Harris's Hannibal novel, which led to the Hannibal Rising book and movie. This version methodically yet entertainingly goes from A to Z, first showing us the young Hannibal Lecter as a very young boy who's scarred by a horrible incident perpetrated on his family by the Nazis, up to the final course in his menu of victims.
From boyhood, we flash forward to a sleekly elegant, yet socially awkward teenaged Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel), who's leaving the orphanage and striking out on his own to find any remnants of kin. His trek leads him to the lovely, intelligent wife of his recently-deceased uncle. The Lady Murasaki (Gong Li) takes Hannibal under her wing, and together the pair pore over gruesome Japanese art, enjoy gourmet cuisine, and share secrets. But even the love of a beautiful woman cannot quell Hannibal's roving quest for retribution.
Truly a grand-guignol gothic revenge-western, Hannibal Rising is sumptuous cinematic experience. Director Peter Webber (Girl With A Pearl Earring) creates art in nearly every shot, without sparing we horror fans any of the gory details. Gaspard Ulliel, while he looks nothing like the more mature Hopkins Hannibal, is cheeky indeed – he has got the languid grace, quippy tongue, and cold killing style we all know and love down-pat. Li is appropriately mysterious in her 40s femme fatale wardrobe; Dominic West rises to the occasion as the police inspector on Hannibal's trail of terror; and Rhys Ifans plays against type as a ruthless Nazi.
Aficionados of the previous Lecter movies will delight in spotting the nods to the previous ones in an almost-pastiche of homages that range from the half-mask introduced in The Silence of the Lambs, to the wild black boars who helped the killer get rid of evidence in Hannibal.
Certainly, with an enigmatic and chilling character like Hannibal Lecter less is more. There's fear in uncertainty, and while I personally would rather have kept his past shrouded in mystery, Hannibal Rising is a bloody good time.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson